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Review 2012 the Royal Society of Edinburgh cover:review2012 19/04/2013 11:25 Page 1 The Royal Society of Edinburgh T h e R o Review 2012 y a l S o c i e t y o f E d i n b u r g h R e v i e w 2 0 1 2 Printed in Great Britain by Henry Ling Limited, Dorchester, DT1 1HD ISSN 1476-4334 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH REVIEW OF THE SESSION 2010-2011 (OCTOBER 2010-OCTOBER 2011) PUBLISHED BY THE RSE SCOTLAND FOUNDATION ISSN 1476-4342 The Royal Society of Edinburgh 22-26 George Street Edinburgh, EH2 2PQ Telephone : 0131 240 5000 Fax : 0131 240 5024 email : [email protected] Scottish Charity No SC000470 Printed in Great Britain by Henry Ling Limited, Dorchester, DT1 1HD CONTENTS ACTIVITIES - SESSION 2010-11 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS ............................ 3 PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING ............ 5 PRIZE LECTURES ...................................................................... 33 LECTURES ............................................................................... 37 CONFERENCES .......................................................................143 PUBLICATIONS........................................................................239 POLICY ADVICE ......................................................................241 SCOTTISH BIOINFORMATICS FORUM ......................................245 EVENTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE ..................................................247 RESEARCH AND ENTERPRISE AWARDS ...................................249 MEDALS, PRIZES AND PRIZE LECTURESHIPS ...........................255 GRANTS COMMITTEE .............................................................257 INTERNATIONAL PROGRAMME ...............................................259 FELLOWS’ SOCIAL EVENTS .....................................................265 GRANTS, SPONSORSHIP AND DONATIONS .............................267 FRIENDS OF THE SOCIETY ......................................................269 SCHEDULE OF INVESTMENTS .................................................271 CHANGES IN FELLOWSHIP DURING THE SESSION ...................275 STAFF CHANGES DURING THE SESSION .................................277 OBITUARY NOTICES ....................................................................279 TRUSTEES’ REPORT AND ACCOUNTS TO 31 MARCH 2011 .........377 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ORDINARY MEETINGS The meeting due to be held on 6 Monday 6 June 2011 December 2010 was cancelled Chairman due to bad weather. Vice -President: Professor Jean Wednesday 9 March 2011 Beggs CBE FRS FRSE President: Lord Wilson of Tillyorn Lecture KT GCMG PRSE The Vice-President introduced Professor Tim Byers, Professor of Ballot Epidemiology and Associate The President announced that Dean at the Colorado school of Professors Jeanne Bell and Alice public health in Denver, Colora- Brown acted as Scrutineers for the do, and asked him to deliver his postal ballot for the election of lecture entitled: Preventing the President and for the election Cancers of the Breast and Colon of new RSE Fellows for 2011. by How We Choose to Live Each They reported that 42% of the Day. Fellowship returned papers for the ballot for the election of the President. Sir John Arbuthnott 5 September 2011 was elected by “an overwhelming majority”. 43% of the Fellowship Chairman returned papers for the election of Lord Wilson of Tillyorn KT GCMG new Fellows and the names on PRSE the list were elected by an over- Lecture whelming majority. The Professor Wade Allison, Emeritus announcement of the incoming Fellow, Keble College, Oxford President and the list of new RSE Radiation and Reason: Straight Fellows have been released to the and Open Thinking about media today. Choosing Nuclear Lecture The President introduced Mr Matt McGrath, and asked him to deliver his Gannochy Trust Innovation Award Prize Lecture entitled Benbecula to Anaesthesia - and Beyond 3 PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATUTORY GENERAL MEETING Minutes of the Statutory General Meeting held on 3 October 2011, ending the 228th Session The Annual Statutory Meeting took place in the Society’s Wolfson Theatre on Monday 3 October 2011 at 5 pm. Lord Wilson of Tillyorn KT GCMG, President, took the Chair. A. Formal Business 1. MINUTES The Minutes of the Annual Statutory Meeting held on Monday 4 October 2010 were taken as read, approved by those Fellows present and signed by the President as a correct record. 2. MATTERS ARISING The President presented a report (Appendix I) on the creation of the RSE Young Academy of Scotland and thanked Professors Peter Holmes, Geoffrey Boulton and Alice Brown, the Society’s staff, and many other Fellows who had assessed the applications received, for the significant contributions all had made and the hard work they had put into success- fully progressing the initiative. An update was requested on the outcome of the review of events primarily for Fellows. Professor Boulton reported that the Executive Board had considered the issue and had agreed that while the Society’s activities debate many issues, very frequently it is in the aftermath of a lecture with a short time for questions and that something more structured which facilitates deliberative discussion amongst Fellows on a fairly regular basis was required. The aim was to establish this in the year ahead, but this needed to be considered in the context of the Society having to make important operational decisions in the coming year given the financial climate in which it is currently operating; and in establishing a new series of events for Fellows, one of the questions might well be what the Society would stop doing in order to make space for such a series. 5 Review of the Session 2010-2011 3. REPORT ON ACTIVITIES FOR SESSION 2010/11 The meeting noted the Report on Activities for Session 2010/11 distrib- uted to Fellows in advance (Appendix II). The President suggested that any discussion of the report should take place after the Office Bearers’ Reports had been delivered. 4. OFFICE BEARERS’ REPORTS a) General Secretary’s Report Professor Geoffrey Boulton gave the following report: We report annually in three ways. First through our annual Trustees’ Report and Accounts, which are approved by Council and are available to any Fellow through our website, or in printed format on request. Secondly, through an illustrated Annual Review, a copy of which all Fellows should have received. Both of these reports cover the financial year from April to March. Thirdly, we report by Session, and my report this evening covers some of the major issues that have occurred during this period, which is the year from the last Annual Statutory Meeting to now. The first issue, already mentioned by the President, is the planning and creation of the RSE Young Academy of Scotland. We are absolutely delighted by the calibre of the individuals who applied for membership and those whom have been elected. The Academy will be formally launched on 29 November 2011 and thereafter will evolve and its members will develop its programme of activities under the auspices of an Interim Steering Group, which will be chaired by the General Secretary. Secondly, there has been anticipation of difficult financial times ahead. We do a tremendous variety of things and some of the key questions we are probably going to have to decide upon in the coming year is which of those things should we to do less of, which should we stop doing, and are there new things we ought to be doing to replace what we already do? We have developed a process by which this might be done, through our Executive Board, which has a detailed understanding and knowledge of the individual parts of the Society’s activities. Of course, should there be major shifts in the balance of things we do, then it is important that we engage with the Fellowship regarding this. 6 Proceedings of the Annual Statutory Meeting The third major issue is securing the Society’s financial future. This is an easy thing to say, but a much more difficult thing to do, largely because of the uncertainties with the grant we receive from the Scottish Government and the very severe pressures its budget is under, but we have engaged with and will continue to engage with Scottish Government Ministers and officials with a view to securing the best possible outcome for the Society. Looking at our activities in broad terms gives a sense of the diversity of things that the Society does and the problems that can arise if we have to adapt in stringent financial circumstances. An outcome of Scottish Government grant reductions in the last year was a morato- rium, for one year at least, of offering new Research Fellowships. Funding permitting, our clear aim is, however, to reinstate this highly successful programme during the coming year. Another area which has been under pressure is our Arts and Humanities Research Awards programme, which has also been highly successful and is an area which, in principle, we would like to protect. Communicating knowledge has continued to be a vitally important activity but, like other areas, has not been free from the financial pressures. Despite this, we managed to deliver a wide ranging programme of activities consistent with previous years. In my view, an activity of particular importance is the advice the Society gives to others, usually Government. This very much involves the Fellowship, and in the last year some 170 Fellows were directly involved in groups that met either to respond to consultation papers or to produce papers of our own. Beyond that, we also circulated to Fellows who we believe have an interest in particular areas to elicit their
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